We always thought we’d look back on our tears and laugh, but we never thought we’d look back on our laughter and cry. – Anonymous
Long-time readers may recall my saying that my mother and I, who had never been very close, finally fell out for good in September of 1997 over my becoming a stripper. Oh, it wasn’t instantaneous; she shouted and threatened and fussed and inflicted guilt for two months, but by Thanksgiving she realized I was adamant (since my new job had already paid off almost $10,000 worth of overdue bills, how could I be otherwise?) There were a few terse letters over the next few months, then nothing. I’ve dutifully informed her of every change of address and status (including my remarriage) since then, but have never received a reply. Even when I told her I had quit dancing (as you can imagine I didn’t even try to tell her what I was doing instead) there was no response; the damage, alas, was done. It’s a pity, really; she always wanted me to be a writer and now here I am, writing. But what I’ve never related here is that my mother wasn’t the only casualty of my adopting sex work; there were two others.
As I explained in my column of July 29th, I had a number of close male friends growing up through the cousin I’ve called “Jeff”, and two of them factor into this story. The first (whom I’ll call Alan) seemed to cool toward me when he went off to attend LSU, but the other (whom I’ll call Walter) remained a very good friend and I actually lived with him (platonically, in separate rooms) for a while in 1989 during one of my many breakups with my first husband, Jack. Anyhow, they both eventually got married, and while I soon became great friends with Alan’s wife “Liz” (who provided the epigram for my July 20th column), Walter’s wife “Theresa” was insanely jealous of all his friends, especially his female ones and MOST especially me since she knew we were very close. Liz and I soon became closer than Alan and I had been in years, but it became virtually impossible for me to see Walter except in large groups, and even then only if Theresa were assured that all women present would be safely under control of our husbands or boyfriends. Keep in mind that Theresa well knew that Walter and I had never been attracted to one another; he was like a brother to me and was such a trustworthy, sincere man that Jack once said he would trust Walter to sleep in the same bed with me. None of that mattered; Theresa had decided that all women were a threat to her.
So that was the way things stood through the mid-‘90s; I saw more and more of Liz and less and less of Walter until I started stripping, at which time two things happened. The first was wholly predictable: Theresa heard about my career change via the grapevine and went ballistic. As Walter later told me, the general gist was that I was “sick” and the kicker was, “If that whore lays a hand on you I’ll kill her.” She even went as far as to call Walter’s mom Kay, long a second mother to me, in order to let her know the “kind of women” her son was friendly with. Kay was a very wise and likeable woman and called to let me know that she understood my position and didn’t judge me for my choice, but also gently suggested that it might not be a good idea to try contacting Walter, because we both knew Theresa was far too insecure and would doubtless make his life miserable if I did. It’s not like I was alone in being excluded from his life; by the turn of the century none of his old friends ever saw Walter any more, and if internet sources are correct they’re still together today.
I was much more surprised by the way things turned out with Liz. When I called to let her know about my taking up stripping, her immediate response was “I think that’s brilliant!” She was of the enlightened opinion that there’s nothing wrong with a woman capitalizing on her sexuality, and she even went with me to pick out some of my first costumes. Given that her husband was an old friend of mine and had once dated a stripper, she assumed he would be glad I was making a decisive effort to get myself out of debt; I would’ve thought the same thing. We were both wrong. Neither of us realized (because he had kept it to himself) that the stripper had broken his heart and had filled him with an aversion to her profession, an aversion which even extended to me. He therefore told Liz that he didn’t like her socializing with me anymore. She was of course incredulous and pointed out that Alan had known me for 16 years and should realize I wasn’t one to descend into the excesses he associated with stripperhood, but he replied that I had “changed” and he didn’t trust me anymore. Liz was of typical redhead temperament and was therefore defiant, telling him that he couldn’t pick her friends; this of course resulted in his declaring me a “bad influence”. To keep peace at home Liz only called me when he wasn’t around, and so things went for two years until I became an escort. We planned to hide this from Alan, but he found out from mutual friends and started making Liz’s life so miserable about the subject that she had little choice but to break off communication with me for the sake of her kids. Since I had no desire to be the cause of marital strife I of course told her she was doing the right thing, and though we exchanged emails on the sly for some time they became less and less frequent and stopped within a year.
Life is full of choices, and each choice carries consequences; some of these can be predicted and others cannot. Part of growing is learning to accept those consequences, though they may be bitter indeed. I don’t regret the choices I’ve made; they opened doors which enabled me to become self-sufficient for the first time in my life, and provided passage into a world I would otherwise only have dreamed about. I’m a big girl, and I know that sometimes one’s victories and gains come at a higher cost than anticipated, but to this day I can’t help but feel a pang of regret whenever I think of Liz or Walter…and that happens much more often than my heart would like.
The things I have seen people comfortably justifying doing to one another – and not only strangers to whom they have no ties, but friends and close kin- lead me to conclude mankind is not sentient at all, merely a more complex animal. Few strive to rise above this natural state.
I wish more displayed the humanity they were nominally born to.
Emily: smartest comment I have read anywhere in a looooong time. I feel you dear, Life on planet of the apes often sucks.
You know, Maggie, it doesn’t matter what you do. Some people are always going to find a way to suck the joy.
I’ve lost friends for being a housewife. In fact, I was kicked off a social networking site that connected all the people I went to MBA school with, because it’s a PROFESSIONAL site, and I don’t have a real job. Sigh.
One of my closest friends revealed to me that she was ready to “break up me” because we were out a bar one night, and around 2AM my husband texted me and said he had sent a friend to pick me up and bring me home safely. I agreed to go, because the night was almost over anyway.
“You don’t have to obey him, you know”, she told me. “Why don’t you just tell him to fuck off?” Er, because he’s my husband and we do not speak to each other that way?
As soon as you make any choice that defies the mainstream, it triggers guilt and envy in others, and they immediately set out to strike the tall poppy down. No one can wave their head above the crowd.
But fuck ’em. We’ll do it anyways!
Andrea
“and I don’t have a real job. Sigh.”
Yes. I’ve noticed women denigrate women who don’t ‘work’ like raising a family is ‘not working’. In sweden they are called ‘luxhausfrau’. Luxury house wife and the working women hate on them quite a bit. In my social circles in Dublin I knew two swedish families very well and the wives would tell me how much women hated on them for ‘not working’ though one had three kids in school and the other two kids in school.
I am a big proponent that the best interests of the children are served by the mother being in the home. My mum told me every day that being a mother was the best job in the world. Sure beats writing bills for the electricty and water supplier which is what my dad did for 45 years.
I’ve NEVER seen a man put down a woman who is raising kids in the home as ‘not working’. I have seen men criticise women for not doing that important job well enough. Not the same thing.
Oh, absolutely; Theresa eventually cut Walter off from ALL his friends, male and female; she just had a convenient excuse with me. 🙁
Maggie,
“Theresa heard about my career change via the grapevine and went ballistic.”
Yep. She went ballistic because you were now a threat to her sexual power over her husband.
This post is intriguing me as well. When Jennifer and I announced our separation to people they were very, very shocked. We were seen to have one of the best marriages around. Shows you what a good actor I am. During the first 4 months I was totally shocked to the core at the diametrically opposed attitudes of men and women. (I have to add that I was also very ill at this time due to over-work and over-stress for about 5 years. My health failed me.)
ALL my mates were very supportive of me. When I shared with them a little of what really happened they ALL made comments like ‘you gave it your best shot, you did everything you could, no-one tried harder’ etc. Many of my closest friends told me that they had always admired me greatly and that I was a role model they looked up to as a husabnd and father which I really appreciated. One even said that in all his life he never met another man who tried harder for his family. My mates were really good to me.
But ALL but one of my female friends hurled hatred and abuse at me. They ALL blamed my for HER actions etc. It’s fascinating to see you get similar ostracism from women…….with the exception of the guy who had his heart broken by a stripper. That sounds suspiciously like Nately in catch 22. His character fell in love with a whore.
Other men I talk to say the same by the way. So it’s fascinating to read your account of how women also attack strippers and prostitutes. I think it was Erin Pizzy who said that of the women in her shelters in the 70s that the hookers were the toughest and most able to take care of themselves.
If I might ask. I have seen men on forums say that it’s pretty common for men to fall in love with strippers and hookers. Is this really true? I mean. How come they fall for them if they do?
For the same reason they fall for any other woman, of course. Sexual fascination goes a long way.
Hi Maggie.
Really? Hhhmmmm.
I can see a man falling for that when he is young. But older men do this too? I am surprised at this. My feelings for my favs1/4 have nothing at all to do with sex. It is ALL about their characters and way of being. Last year I invited fav4 to the Villa Kennedy the day England player Germany. We strolled on by the river Main. We ate icreams on a riverboat. We went to the gym, pool, spa, sauna. We decided to have dinner delivered to the balcony overlooking the restaurant. We ate a 5 star meal, listened to the music and talked with each other late into the night. It was one of the loveliest nights I ever had. The sort of night I wished more of with my wife. The next day she told me “No man ever spent a day with me like that before. Is this what good men do?” She was really surprised to be treated like this. Indeed. Many times she said to me “I have never been treated like this before” and “You treated your wife like this and she attacked you?”
You know Maggie. Our mothers do not do us boys any favours. Our mothers drum into us how ‘wonderful’ women are all our young lives. They NEVER tell us that they might lie to us and manipulate us. They NEVER tell us they can be vicious and cruel and callous. I NEVER heard that as a young man. When men would tell me this later I would dis-believe them and think the man must have done something to bring on this behaviour. I was totally brainwashed in the ‘women as saint’ story.
My grandmothers, aunts, female cousins consistently gave me the message “women are very honest to their men and a woman will love and support a good husband and NEVER do anything to hurt him or harm him because a good husband is the most precious thing a woman can ever find.” That sort of message.
As a lad? Looking around? It was blatantly obvious to me that men ranged widely in quality as husbands from the great to the downright dangerous. And since it was one woman one husband? It was obvious to me that I was the ‘prize’ (not the woman). I was sold (and I bought) the story that if I was a great husband my wife would be so pleased to have gotten ‘one of the good ones’ that she would never do anything to possibly lose a great husband. So it came as a total shock to me she did. And it does to a LOT of other men too. And yes. She was apparently so devastated to finally lose her ‘great husband’ that she claims to have spent 18 months in counselling for ‘depression’. She has blown up like a balloon and aged 10 years in two. She is a very unhappy woman now despite stealing 95% of the family assets and committing so many crimes and getting away with it.
Interestingly. When we first started dating my mum said “Jennifer is a ‘scarlet woman’. I forbid you to see her. She is only after your money.” I was a poor uni student! I laughed at mum and said Jennifer would be waiting a hell of a long time to get any real money out of me as I was still at uni. I was 20. It would be easily 10 more years before I had any money to speak of. The idea she was interested in me as a ‘money earner’ seemed laughable to me. I was convinced that she was really interested in ME and not my earning potential which was very much in doubt at such a young age. Yes. Jennifer ‘saw me coming’ and I was naïve. So are most young men.
My message to you and other women is this. My mum called Jennifer a ‘scarlet woman’ right off the bat. But she had spent so many years telling me how ‘wonderful’ women were that I dis-believed her. Such is the dis-service women do to their sons by not teaching them properly about women. Such is the dis-service women do to each other by not protecting good men from bad women a little better.
When us men find out the true nature of women and find out that we have been lied to? Our feeling of betrayal is very deep indeed. Then? When we ask women to remedy this betrayal we are hated on even more. If women will not do as I have asked and help protect men from cruel and criminal women? Then I will.
I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in women refusing to be honest and help the many men like me who are working to defuse this ‘gender war’ that women have so enthusiastically brought against us.
We protected and provided for women for generations. And we are hated on for doing so.
“Falling for that”? Oh, my! Peter, your bad experiences have warped your thinking. That’s the way of the world, as any woman can tell you.
Free advice: Look carefully at that statement; reread it as many times as possible until you recognize the fallacy inherent in it, and then maybe you really will be able to “work to defuse” it. But until you correct your invalid initial premise your “efforts” are doomed to failure. 🙁
I’ll chime in as family who once discovered my sister was a hooker in NV. I was stunned beyond tears; no less than had she died.
I’ve stated this before, but will repeat:
I believe the repulsion to hookers is not rooted in morality. We don’t learn it at church. It’s a sexual perversion rooted deep in our brains. When we see a young woman with baby and a husband to protect them , we smile and instinctively know the future is bright. When we see a hooker, we see biological loss, a dead end.
Your mother doesn’t *choose* how she responds to hookers. I believe she is hardwired neurologically to feel repulsion. It’s biology, not social construct.
Which begs the question of the biology behind being repulsed by your child.
Wow. No shit. I don’t think I should respond to this… Would you have been as ‘stunned’ if you learned she was anything other than what you consider ‘normal’? Perhaps it would have been easier for you if you had learned she was a lesbian, or wanted to be a man…
I don’t think my mother’s rejecting me was due to biology but rather psychology; I was aware of her treating me differently from my little sisters by the time I was about 6 or 7.
To JZ:
It’s probably also hardwired into our genes that we’re “repulsed” at gay kids because they represent a genetic dead end (i.e. no grandkids and no legacy).
However, we are human beings, not fish, and we have an intellect and can make judgments beyond our instincts. Therefore, many of us *choose* to put our instincts aside and accept people for being things we perhaps don’t understand or don’t like. So long as those people aren’t nasty and rude to our faces what does it really matter, ultimately, what they do?
I’ll take it one step further. It’s probably rooted in our DNA that men *instinctively* want to grab women they find attractive and throw women down on the ground and have sex with them right there. However, we’re not animals, and most men don’t do this. We intellectually overcome our base urges. That’s what separates us from the characters on Animal Planet.
Very well said, Days. I am reminded of Captain Kirk’s “I will not kill today” speech. 🙂
” I am reminded of Captain Kirk’s “I will not kill today” speech.”
Wow…I am impressed!
Emily,
great point. Could the biologic repulsion from prostitution ( and homosexuality) be so strong as to trump our drive for progeny?
Speaking only for myself, I can consciously will myself to have a cordial relationship with my sister and have homosexual friends; just as Days can will himself not to rape attractive women. Underneath our cordial veneers, however, we still respond to the biological perversions.
Logical fallacy.
You begin with a personal assumption (“I believe…”) and then attempt to mold the science to fit. Construct a valid argument for your beliefs and then we can have a rational discussion. Might be interesting.
At the moment, you merely sound like you’re trying to excuse behaving like a repulsive dick.
Emily,
First of all, I am a woman. (that was YOUR assumption)
I don’t need to prove anything here, just like you all don’t. You assert what you prefer to believe, and operate from there.
You’re speaking to the woman known for telling obnoxious men they’re behaving like twats.
Two for two so far.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts. I could believe with all my heart that I menstruate gold, but when time comes for me to exchange used tampons for hard currency I might hit a little snag.
@JZ
can’t imagine why there would be biologic repulsion to either homosexuality OR prostitution.
Homosexuality actually makes very good genetic sense. It is an insurance policy built into extended families. In the event that children are orphaned, the best care they can possibly get would be from genetically related adults who have no genetic offspring of their own.
While being adopted by adults with genetic offspring is a viable option, those adults will always prefer their own offspring. You don’t want to be a stepchild or adopted child if there is a house fire or a famine.
Homosexuality allows extended families to care for orphaned genetic offspring in the most (genetically) cost effective manner.
And prostitution is genetically a better strategy than monogamy, which probably explains why there is so little monogamy, especially in the absence of property laws. Monogamy actually means you are married to one person legally. It says nothing about whom you fuck, but I’ll take it to mean fidelity here.
Monogamy limits your gene pool to just one sperm donor. Prostitution allows you to sample a wide variety of donors and biology has created all kinds of systems to ensure that the most fit speciman wins the race for the egg.
So I do not accept your claim that biology creates an aversion to either prostitution or homosexuality. Makes no sense to me at all.
Prostitution is a biologic dead end. A prostitute dies with no legacy. She lives alone and dies alone. Her eggs are wasted. She has no choices for mating, because she has chosen not to mate.
A homosexual also dies without progeny, which is not as wasteful, but a biological dead end, just the same. Any orphans will be better cared for by the other extended family.
Cue laughter from the prostitutes with children and spouses.
Wow. I am officially impressed. How much is the postage to mail something from the world you live in to planet Earth?
@jz
She has no choices for mating, because she has chosen not to mate.
A prostitute who doesn’t mate? Isn’t that kind of like a chef who doesn’t cook?
Unless you mean the strictly blow/hand job variety. I guess her eggs are safe.
Are you sure you know what the word prostitute means?
My first thought was the same – “I don’t think that word means what she thinks it means.”
If she doesn’t, though, we might have to explain, and just think how upset she’d be then.
Um, JZ? Nearly every whore I know has kids. In fact, I’m one of the few who don’t, and that was due not to choice or lack of opportunity but a biological defect unrelated to my harlotry (and manifesting several years earlier than the latter).
jz
“Prostitution is a biologic dead end. A prostitute dies with no legacy. She lives alone and dies alone.”
Um..Jz. I am told that a LOT of the prostitutes in germany are eastern european women who have ‘bad husbands’ who has one or two kids ‘back home with mum’.
Certainly I can tell you that a LOT of the women who are waitresses sales staff in shops around here are in that position.
Eastern Europe has had 90 years of feminism. Also known as communism. This has destroyed the willingness of men to ‘protect and provide’ for women as it was designed to do. This is a major reason these women are flooding into germany. They are looking for a ‘good husband’ to pay for their ‘thug-spawn’ because their ‘bad husband’ back home won’t.
This has been made very clear to me by the 20 or so Eastern European women I have talked more closely with over the last 3 years. Sure. It’s just their opinion but it rings true. By the way. The official numbers say there are 1.7M more women in germany than men. Any man who looks like he has some money is a target for these EEW to try and get money from. Everyone is really clear about what is going on here. No-one is arguing that this is not the case.
Emily,
Spouses? the exceptions do not make the rule. Quality men do not commit their lives and fortunes to hookers. You know that is true. Marginalized men “commit” for financial benefits.
And children? What child wants to be raised by a Single Mom hiding her life in secrecy? She lies to herself and to her children, because of pervasive repulsion of her.
Please respond, but snarky little quibbles will be ignored.
Reality doesn’t seem to have penetrated, I don’t know why my snarky little quibbles will.
I thought we were maintaining that prostitutes do not have children, ergo biological dead end? Now they exist but want a mother you would find less repulsive. You know, I don’t know how you expect me to keep track of the rules in the magical world of JZland if you can’t keep up with yourself either. Let me know when you’ve decided whether prostitutes have children or not.
JZ, I can assure you that quality men do indeed commit their lives and fortunes to harlots, quite often in fact (and I don’t merely mean the subspecies of prostitute society labels “wife”). My husband is about as quality as they come (and not just in my eyes, though you probably won’t believe that). I’m curious as to what you define as “quality”; how about one of the greatest of Byzantine Emperors, a man who is considered a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church?
There is zero, zip, nil, nada moral difference between “the authorities require women to wear concealing garments in order to protect them from the sexual attentions of men whether they want those attentions or not” and “the authorities require women not to wear concealing garments in order to protect them from the domination of men whether they want that domination or not”.
I’m not sure I agree with this, Maggie.
To me, the burqua is the same as a Klu Klux Klansman’s robes. Are you allowed to be a racist asshole and wear whatever you want in the privacy of your home and preach death and destruction to a huge percentage of the human race based on your own very fucked-up ideas about what constitutes purity?
Absolutely! Have at ‘er. Saddle up, light a cross, do whatever you want. At home. In private.
Do you have a right to parade your repulsive, hate-mongering beliefs in public, particularly a public in which the painful vestiges of the historical embrace of these ideas is still reverberating?
No. Nope. Absolutely not. Sorry. Take your cross burning shit and shove it.
What if they were marching down the street wearing Nazi uniforms? Could you look in the eyes of a Jewish child who witnessed this, and think, well, that’s free speech? What if a bunch of Hutus ran gleefully through the streets re-enacting the Rwandan massacres? Is that okay?
Burquas represent a horrifically regressive view of human sexuality and women. Radical Islam will hold down a little girl and cut off her clitoris. With a dirty piece of glass.
I think the burqua represents evil. I agree in principal with the idea of personal liberty, but when you come for my daughter, I will gun you down.
We cannot be part of the chorus of voices that condones evil. Evil exists. It really does.
** full disclosure – I was raised by violent fundamentalist Christians, so I am particularly sensitive to the evil that religion can do. Especially against little girls.
Andrea, I understand where you’re coming from, but just can’t condone governments restricting individual behavior which hurts nobody, no matter WHAT the behavior represents. I despise the KKK and Nazis as much as the next moral person, but I don’t have the right to tell some loser he can’t dress up in his costume and run around town in it and neither should the government. I wouldn’t consent to have my hair shorn off and run around in baggy men’s clothes, but I can’t (and wouldn’t if I could) stop neofeminists from doing it, even if they’re wearing T-shirts that say “prostitution is paid rape”. And though I can’t abide fundamentalism of any stripe, I haven’t the right to tell women not to cover their faces or give their money to televangelists, and neither should the government.
Allowing governments to tell some people what they can do “for their own good” is a slippery slope, and lest you disbelieve that consider that the same French government which banned the face veil “for the good” of those women is now contemplating switching to the Swedish Model “for the good” of prostitutes. Allowing exceptions to civil rights is the camel’s nose under the tent.
I’m with Maggie. The control over what a person wears, believes or says must remain with the individual. Some will use their autonomy to be assholes. This is regrettable, but it is no where close to the amount of harm the government will (WILL, I say) do after usurping that power.
The problem with letting an all-powerful Other decide what one can believe, say or do is that you no longer have a say at what they will decide NEXT is not on the list of approved beliefs. Things that only happen to “other people” stop being okay the second you realize you are “other people” too.
An FYI, there are Muslim clerics and non-clerics AGAINST genital mutilation. If anyone wants links, I’ll be glad to post them. Also, if women want to cover their faces they have that right. If they don’t want to they have that right also. This isn’t what you’d call a “life or death issue”. It doesn’t involve people being killed, held prisoner, kidnapped, theft, etc. It’s a choice of dress. Also, Muslim women who do cover will show their faces if needed to be identified in court, etc. I’m personally outraged over this burka ban and found out that ###*** are trying to get this done in England now. I’ll post a petition about this when I can. Speaking of neo-Nazis, if you take away their right to assemble and speak, then there goes everyone else INCLUDING good people who deserve the right to speak and assemble. It’s an all or nothing thing. This burka ban is a dangerous precedent. The truth is you can’t hide everyone from everything out there. If you start doing that things will just keep getting more repressive. If the neo-Nazis are ordered to shut up and not assemble, then it’ll be shut up the KKK next. Then it’ll be don’t allow gay pride parades. Then it’ll be shut up preachers of any kind. If women have the right to wear what some ###*** call “slutty” (eyeroll) clothes then the Muslim women deserve their rights also. History has shown over and over what happens if this stuff is allowed because this group or that group is “bad” and “should be shut up”, etc. The same repressive evil applies when it comes to personal dress like the burka. I personally hate neo-Nazis and KKK people, but will defend their right to assemble and speak because if you take it from them, you take it from all in the long run. That’s an outrage. Part of the price we pay for this all or nothing freedom is that people are sometimes going to see stuff they don’t want to, etc. If you aren’t into the neo-Nazis and know they’ll be assembling by you, then don’t go there in order to risk seeing what you don’t want to. People have a responsibility to avoid to the degree they can stuff they don’t want any part of. This whole burka thing is another reminder of how much persecution there is of Muslims. I’m sick of it. I’m on a message board where all the ###*** about Muslims got so bad it disrupted the whole board, etc. All this ###*** about how they’re all terrorists, etc. People on there were also personally attacking those of us defending the Muslims from these evil blanket statements, stereotypes, etc. If Muslim women want to cover it’s their right. They also have the right to be sexually conservative and I’m sick and tired of people who choose to be (Muslim or not) getting ###*** about it. Thanks for listening.
Laura and I frequently disagree on matters of both politics and religion. But we agree on this one. Consider that forty-five years ago the majority of people in Birmingham were just as offended by what Martin Luther King, Jr. had to say as any of us here are by what any Klansman or Neo-Nazi has to say. When Margaret Sanger was out there advocating for birth control, many were as offended by that as most of us would be today over her advocacy of eugenics. The standard has to be no matter how bad the message you get to advocate it. With words or clothes.
Dear Sailor Barsoom, when I learned a few years ago what that ###*** Sanger said about black people I was disgusted but also very glad to learn about it/glad that people were still exposing it. It needs to be exposed as much as possible. Speaking of not agreeing (wink), why would you want to be with me? Don’t you know that “wild women” (including those horrible groupies) are: full of STD’s, have no self-esteem (if we had that we wouldn’t be wild women to begin with as the only reason we are is to get validation), have no morals in any area of our lives and are just plain old sluts (scary!)! It’s also scary to choose not to use men to get free drinks/meals by using our looks, flirting, etc., also. I’m also a Protestant (gasp!) and that means I spend almost all day persecuting/lying about anyone who isn’t sexually conservative. This includes hating on gay people. For some reason I’m bisexual and everyone knows that Christians not only hate those people but there’s really no Christians who have those desires either! If they admit this to any preachers, they get kicked out of church. For some when I talked about it to the pastors where I go to church when I do go they didn’t kick me out and have never treated me different. HHHHMMMM.. Also, Ted Haggard came out as a bisexual not long ago but he must be lying about that. I also hate/persecute all political liberals. If you’re not a Republican you don’t count! When I’m not doing the above I’m handling snakes, rolling around on the floor speaking in tongues and am willfully ignorant about many things. I automatically believe eveything the Bible says without checking anything in it out for myself. I send all my money to preachers and don’t give a cent to anyone else truly in need. I’m anti-intellectual and think the Crusades, Inquisition, killing witches, etc., were not only great but needed. I revel in the death penalty and think every murderer should get it and think the people who are cheering outside prisons during executions are great. I scream at/harrass, etc., women going into abortion clinics. I’m also against abortion and we never help in any way the women who choose to not abort. What else? I think I covered it all here! (2 winks)…LOL.
The snake handling I didn’t really mind, but when you got a CAT…
The truth is, the general public treats wild women and prostitutes pretty much the same. That’s the general public; the law only picks on hookers (though they like to accuse wild women of being hookers, so watch out).
Now don’t forget to take those pills Margaret made legal. 😉
Jy,
“Quality men do not commit their lives and fortunes to hookers.”
Isn’t this just shaming language directed at the men? Isn’t this ‘if you marry a hooker you are not a quality man’?
I don’t know a man married to a hooker. And I imagine that this is not very ‘socially acceptable’. Certainly I would believe that if I married a hooker and went to a dinner party and openly said my wife was an ex-hooker I would expect to be ostracized by the women who would also manipulate their husbands to ostracize me.
But gay men were similarly ostracized not 30 years ago. In the 80s two gay men lived in our street. Since I have no problem with gay men I invited them to my house for dinner just like my other neighbours in my street. They were really nice guys.
When other neighbours found out that we would have the gay guys over for dinner they criticised us and told us that we should not be doing this. Really? Why?
I’ve been quite comfortable around gay men and women since I was about 20. I have been quite comfortable about hookers since my first trip to Hong Kong in 87 when I was 23. I have nothing against gays and hookers, and nothing ‘for’ them any more than the next WASP. They are just people who seem to have different tastes to me. Let them be. What I DO have a bee in my bonnet about is ANYONE who thinks they have a right to force their morality or social mores onto someone else. If no-one is being harmed, no-one is complaining, then let them be.
I am reminded of the full face burka ban in France that went into effect yesterday. It was all over CNN last night. The idea that a woman is not free to follow her religion and cover her face is abhorrent to me. The same way as the idea that a woman is not free to off sex for money is also abhorrent to me. Freedom is a very precious and very fundamental thing. It is not free. It must be jealously guarded as there are PLENTY of men who wish to enslave men and women alike.
The full face burqua ban is actually something I agree with and support. There is something incredibly dehumanizing about requiring women to cover their faces. If this were a two way street, and men also had to cover their faces, I might feel differently, but as long as it only applies to women, I dislike it.
The kind of interpretation of Islam that involves the burqua is a very woman-hating one. It gives me shivers. This is the “cut the clitoris off your little daughter” kind of interpretation. I think it should be actively supressed.
Some things are just evil. Ask any one who was alive in 1938 Austria when Germany invaded.
While I would never wear a full-face black veil, I also wouldn’t wear the sort of figure-concealing shapeless garments advocated by American neofeminists and frankly, I can’t see the moral difference; both are intended to shield a woman’s attractions from male eyes.
The problem with banning face-veils is twofold: 1) it imposes a government restriction on the deeply personal choice of wardrobe; and 2) it’s the top of a very slippery slope which leads to the Swedish Model and other forms of infantilization of women. NO government has the right to restrict a woman’s choices in the name of “protecting” her; that was precisely the reason purdah was established in Islam in the first place! There is zero, zip, nil, nada moral difference between “the authorities require women to wear concealing garments in order to protect them from the sexual attentions of men whether they want those attentions or not” and “the authorities require women not to wear concealing garments in order to protect them from the domination of men whether they want that domination or not”.
I would never choose to let a man control me that completely, but then I would never choose to snort coke, watch two guys having sex, go swimming in freezing water or jump out of a perfectly good airplane, either. It’s not my business to tell others they can’t do those things just because I think they’re stupid, disgusting or whatever, and it certainly isn’t the business of elected busybodies to do so either.
Way i see it the burka thing is not about religion or “women” at all. It is about civil society. I’m ok with people wearing And saying/doing whatever they want as long as my own right to wear a loaded sixgun strapped to my leg and shoot people I think are assholes is similarly protected. Failing that and my having to control my urges of shooting assholes for the benefit of humanity and my religion of one, EVERYONE else better have as many restrictions on being an asshole as I have imposed on me too. It’s only fair. So we’ll see your face thanks, and you will keep a civil tongue in your head and and and…. Until one day people may have evolved enough to understand a simple concept: let people do what they want AND do NOT do unto another anything they do NOT want done unto them, and this includes sometimes seeing/hearing you altogether. The only other logical alternative comes back to me and the sixgun…
FOR the burka ban:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2011/apr/17/observer-big-issue-burqa-ban
AGAINST the ban:
http://blogs.forbes.com/stephaniedahle/2011/04/11/frances-burka-ban-starts-today-2/
Petition AGAINST banning them in England:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/burka/
Maggie,
Check your trackbacks, lady. You might be linked on some batshitcrazy.com or something. You’ve been getting some sparkly examples of awesome lately.
Wow, yall making a mess in Mags house AND her husband has been insulted….
Okay, time for Kelly Michaels to chime in.
@Jz- You may be a woman, but you are clearly not of our whore variety. You do not understand who we are. You do not understand how we live, the children we raise, or how we marry.
You say that men don’t devote their lives or fortunes to hookers, let me explain, we do not want them to! We are not gold diggers! We put in an honest hours work for an honest hours pay. We do not need their fortunes, as we have ….OUR OWN! Yes, we have our own.
We claim independence. We do not want ANY one man to own us, rule us, or control us. We are in control, of our lives, our budgets, and our partners.
Progemy? Completely Irreleveant. We provide, and engage in RECREATIONAL SEX. If the most fit sperm donor ever reaches one of my eggs, I have not done my job right. Responsible hookers practice safe sex. Taking that argument right off the table.
I encourage you to re read Maggies article. You missed the point. She is not talking about progeny, she is talking about discrimination against imagined threats. Against the perceived threat that a woman, comfortable in her sexuality, though not flagrant with it, poses to any and all that come into her presence. IMHO. It is similar to racism, but not. It is looking at a Hooker and thinking that we would even want your man to begin with. To me, I see men like those without children see kids. I love to play with them, then give them back, but I am damn sure not trying to have any of my own, much less kidnap yours.
Warmly,
Kelly Michaels
Kelly
“You say that men don’t devote their lives or fortunes to hookers, let me explain, we do not want them to! We are not gold diggers! We put in an honest hours work for an honest hours pay. We do not need their fortunes, as we have ….OUR OWN! Yes, we have our own.”
And this would make you VERY different to women like my ex.
And just to further clarify, when and if we find a “keeper”. Best believe, he is just that, a truly extraordinary example of the male species. We are not easily impressed. What I, (I will speak for myself here) am impressed by is not his fortune, or his status, or his body, or his penis size, but rather, his ability to love me, for who and what I am, in the true sense of the word love. Unconditional, without judgement. Full of acceptance, and adoration.
We, contrary to popular belief are not out for any mans fortune, we are just providing a necessary service, for which we are fairly compensated. How did this turn into a Progemy discussion?
Kelly,
well thank you for saying that there are some ‘good men’ out there. That’s refreshing from hearing how we are all rapists and paedophiles. 🙂
And…. BTW….. I know SEVERAL women, who have met the man that I described above, under contracted circumstances…And they at this moment are living happily ever after. The end. For real this time. sorry for not having my thoughts together all at once.
I’ve missed you Kelly M! Good to see ya!
Why would it surprise anyone that hookers meet their husbands at work? Don’t most people meet their spouses at work these days?
Love is love. If a man doesn’t love you because of your job, well DTMFA. Doesn’t like your social status? DTMFA. Is in any way an asshole? DTMFA!
Let’s do a little math, shall we? Maggie, ladies, you will have to help me out. I’ll guess the rate of turnover at escort agencies is pretty high. I’ll be there are lots of women working for specific goals (college, boob job, whatever), and lots working for longer term goals (house, apartment building, villa in south of France). And a continuous crop of new recruits.
If we take the rate of turnover and multiply it by the sheer number of women who have ever worked as escorts, we are likely going to find out that ONE HELL OF A LOT OF WOMEN have worked, at some point, in the escort business. Add strippers and massage artists, and I’m thinking you are going to have a statistically significant portion of the female population working in the sex industries at one point or another.
The majority of whom, no doubt, go on to marry fabulous men, have children and otherwise keep calm and carry on.
And Kelly, not to be a bitch about it, but finding a man to pay all your bills doesn’t necessarily make you a gold digger. It might make you a suburban housewife, doing a valuable job and making an important contribution 😉
We’re whores, too, dontcha know!
Ok so I have a question, kinda seriously here because it does send mixed signals. My mother always told me that it is just as likely to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor man. Indicating to me that I should wait and at least fall in love with a rich man over a poor one. If I had followed her advice (instead of being the rebellious little twit that I was) would that have made me a gold digger?
Andrea, the general estimate is that roughly 1% of the female population has worked in declared prostitution at one time or another. If you expand that to include stripping and opportunistic prostitution, the number is vastly higher, probably as much as 5-10% (which was the percentage of women who were whores in most pre-20th-century cultures).
Maggie,
“roughly 1% of the female population has worked in declared prostitution”
Us men are feeling very much that alimony is just ‘prostitution without the sex’. So the number would be much larger than 1%.
That’s why I specified “declared” prostitution; I’m excluding wives, party girls, sugar babies, strippers who do it on the side, gold-diggers, etc. About 1% of the female population has actually worked for an escort service, stood on a street corner, taken out an ad, that sort of thing for at least a short period sometime in their lives, and almost a third of that number (0.285%) are currently working prostitutes.
If I had followed her advice (instead of being the rebellious little twit that I was) would that have made me a gold digger?
I say it depends. Do you want children? Do you want to raise them at home? Do you want a comfortable home? What level of risk are you comfortable with?
Raising children is a full time job. It doesn’t HAVE to be – you can pay others to pick up some of the slack, but if you want to be the primary care-giver, you’re going to need to marry someone who also wants his children raised at home and is prepared to pay for that. That doesn’t make you a gold digger. It makes you an awesome team.
I also had the opportunity to marry someone who was very rich, who wanted a beck and call girl. His job was very demanding, and he wanted a wife who would put aside her own desires and focus on his when he has available. He didn’t want children, though 🙁 The woman he eventually married is not a gold digger, in my opinion. She is in a partnership that requires her to accomodate her husband’s schedule.
Marry a poor man, if that’s what you want. As long as you are marrying principally for love, you are not a gold-digger. I say principally because I adore my husband and I married him for love, but had he been a mime in the park, he’d still be in the park!
Just curious as to your thoughts. As a teen realizing that in all likelihood I was getting closer to the “finding a husband and settling down” age it was quite confusing. Find a rich man to love but don’t be a gold digger. No I fell for a man who was neither rich nor poor but could hold his own.
As to what happened in that situation you can refer to part of my story on Maggies post “Feminine Pragmatism” or whatever it was a few days ago.
Now I choose not to decide at all (but I guess that is still a choice). WAIT I feel a RUSH song coming on!!!!
*Bursts into song ‘Free Will’*
Andrea,
“Raising children is a full time job. It doesn’t HAVE to be – you can pay others to pick up some of the slack, but if you want to be the primary care-giver, you’re going to need to marry someone who also wants his children raised at home and is prepared to pay for that. That doesn’t make you a gold digger. It makes you an awesome team.”
What a breath of fresh air that a woman sees a husband as part of a TEAM and not a walking wallet to be leeched from. Do you have any idea how RARE it is to see a view like this expressed by a western woman?
Kelly,
do you mean some men meet their future wives as hookers? Really? Can you say more about that? I’m really interested. Thanks. P.
Yes, of course! My husband was once my favorite customer. It’s unusual but not highly so, and when you think about it why is it any different from a man falling in love with his nurse, student, secretary, saleslady, etc?
I’m so sorry you have suffered the needless loss of close friends. As you know from what we have talked about in private correspondence, I can relate all too well. It hurts to suffer this kind of loss and it’s a hurt that never fully goes away. I wish it were different for you Maggie. You deserve so much better than you got.
Thank you, Jill; I know somebody else we can say that about, too. 😉
Honestly feeling guilty for use of such a negative term. My deepest, most sincere apologies. It was directly in response to JZ’s proclamation that no man would devote his life, nor his fortune to a hooker. My point was…..WHO SAYS WE WANT HIM TO????
So, my use of the term “GOLD DIGGER” was in specific response to that, now there are many circumstances between men and women that are mutually beneficial, and I am not against those. I am specifically saying to JZ, don’t say no respectable man would ever devote his life or his fortune to hookers when A) Maggie points out that that is completely false above…. and B) that is not what we…no wait… I will speak for myself…that is not what I am after! I am honestly providing a service that I am fairly paid for, yet Jz presents it as if every hooker, every time she meets a client is hoping that he will devote his life and fortune to her, and then sadly disappointed that he won’t, because he is a rich man, and we sthe lowly hookers- the vaginas to masturbate into, (as stated before)
Well, my point in saying I am not a gold digger is that, I don’t want that! I am not waiting for that Pretty Woman scene. This is my job. I am not scouring the earth for a rich man to support me. For those that have found an arrangement that works…I’m not mad at ya… I’m just saying for JZ to say what she said in that way infuriates me. I could have married 9 different wealthy men if I were inclined to limit myself, or commit myself. However, I am not.
Anyone else may conduct themselves as they see fit…but…let me make it clear to JZ, this is not a position of desperate anticipation that we are lingering in…This is a conscious choice. I have my own, I do not wait in anticipation for another.
A true confession, Maggie you speak of your mother, it is appropriate here for me to mention mine. I was taken by my father in the divorce at an early age. She was left with three other children not his. She bartended. She struggled. She met a man. She took his hand. She became his. He made it later impossible for any of us to have a real relationship with her.
I hadn’t seen her in many years (17). I saw her recently. We talked not only about my chosen profession of Whore, but we also spoke of her chosen husband. Without getting too far into details understand that the following statement made to her was true.
I said “Mom, I understand why you left with him. More than the other kids, I get it. He was a client to you. You were alone, poor, and you needed someone to take care of you. You’re not so different than me. I just prefer that my clients pay me by the hour. I want my life to be my own. You, you took on a client for life, and you have no control. You cant even see your kids when you want to. I will spend no more than a few hours at a time with a client, because I will not let them dictate who I am.” and that is what makes us different.
My mom is not wrong for her lifelong choice, I am not wrong for defiantly rejecting wealth and security.
We make our own choices, and our own lives. JZ… stop, and listen…you have no idea what it is that you are trying to sound knowledgable about. This is not about progemy. This is about real whores, with real children who are proud of them, and do love them. This is about clients that are not “marginal” and yet meet an incredible woman(whore) and do devote their lives and fortunes to them.
This is not some internet fantasy you are writing about…This is real. We are real. Our children are real. Our love is real. Our husbands are real. How could you label so many families, mothers, and children and husbands as biological dead ends? Is that really what you think of me? Is that what you think of so many of my sisters? You have a lot of growing up to do little girl. A Lot of growing up. So do many, many others. Sadly.
Brandy—-I missed you too…. been lost in a lesbian love fest for two months….lol…but I am back now. (sure was fun tho)..I am gonna be in Tx soon…I will be making an appointment fo sho! lol….
Read this, people. This isn’t about the positioning of politicians and the bullying of cops, or the history of prostitution or the fantasies of pimp fetishists, but it is important if we want to understand that these women, these whores, are real human beings. They have friends, and mothers, and and many have husbands,and children. They are just like the rest of us, really.
Except that they are put upon in ways most of us are not.
Thank you, Sailor B; if more people understood that as you do, our work would be a lot easier. 🙂
Too bad Theresa and Alan didn’t get together instead – they sound perfect for each other.
I’m wiping tears away.
Not just for you – for Walter and Liz. How sad.